e-library cards

I stumbled across an interesting post today. I had wondered what had happened to cause the San Francisco library to retract their eCards. According to librarian.net:

"EBSCO made a bold move recently claiming that libraries that offer e-cards [for accessing electronic library resources from home] are violating their licensing agreement."

The posting continues, but also mentions how this Boston Public Library is handling the situation.

"Boston Public Library is taking a different tack and keeping the e-card program and dropping remote access to EBSCO. Both libraries have to curtail services — and SFPL is changing their e-card policies fairly dramatically — because of this."

I'm adding librarian.net to my RSS feeds - it looks like it has some good stuff! The previous post to the one regarding eCards was a post about the top 10 apps for iPhones. :)

Online Etiquette

Some articles about what you should keep in mind to protect your online reputation when using social networking sites...

http://www.pcworld.com/businesscenter/article/154374/facebook_etiquette_five_dos_and_donts.html

http://knol.google.com/k/alisa-miller/social-netiquette-of-social-networking/2id079d3nzhiv/3#

Social Networking

I've been meaning to post about social networking for a while now. So many people/places/organizations have presences on social networking sites that I kind of feel that we really need to take advantage of the networking opportunities this creates. Nearly all of my younger relatives keep in touch via Facebook - and not email. That's a trend I think we need to keep in mind when it comes to PR for library events -the younger generation doesn't use email nearly as much as the older generation. It's also something that has made me begin to reconsider whether or not the library should be blocking social networking sites. By blocking them for minors (especially teens!), are we alienating our future customers? Are we being over-protective as to the danger/risk and need to protect minors? Is there a grey area where perhaps we should be blocking these sites for young children, but not for teenagers?

Personally, I have a Facebook account, but I haven't done much with it. As a means to stay in touch with family and friends, I really need to start taking advantage of what Facebook offers.

Wiki Wiki!

I'm a fan of wikipedia & I think wikis are good for creating collaborative informational sites on the internet or for collaborative projects...but I do still have some questions. I went to the SJCPL Subject Guides and looked at their Gardening guide. I can see library staff working cooperatively to create this subject guide wiki, but for some sections of the wiki it seemed that there were better ways (less labor intensive) to do it. For example: Someone has to enter the information and maintain/keep it up to date. Also, for items like "New Gardening Books on Our Shelves", wouldn't it be easier to get that information via an RSS feed that is somehow linked to the catalog rather than to manually input the titles?

I also looked at the book review wiki - this looks like a much more friendly way to allow patrons to post book reviews than using the Evanced software. I find myself thinking a wiki (or a blog) could also work as a great forum for an online book discussion group.

Finally, I looked at the "Blogging Libraries Wiki". Sadly, I'd say that the Richmond Public library blog is an example of what not to do... It hasn't been posted on since November of 2008, and never received a single comment on any of their postings. I'm sure that was frutstrating for them!

I've sent a request to edit or add an entry on the CHPL Learning "sandbox", so I'll try that once permission comes through. :)

Flickr Account

OK,
I went ahead and created a Flickr Account (yes, yet another user name and password to remember!). I uploaded 4 pictures and made sure to use the CHPLLearning tag. One of the uploaded pictures is Fox in Snow picture that my father took in December of 2007. The link to that picture is here:

Fox in Snow on Flickr - Photo Sharing!

Flicker...no Flickr!

I was aware of Flickr, but only in regards to photos that were available in the Creative Commons. Sometimes, I just couldn't find the "right" photo to use to advertise an upcoming program. The Creative Commons has helped with this dilemma more than once. I also can see library use of mashups - especially with maps. I wonder if we could do a mashup of a library's floorplan/layout and photos of the various locations inside the library as a variation? - an interior map/mashup so to speak.?

I'd never thought about uploading all of my personal pictures to an internet site such as Flickr. I understand you can make the settings private, but somehow I've never trusted that they truly are private! I certainly had a lot of fun looking at photos in Flickr. I went looking for photos of library signs and while some of them were great, some were just awful, and some were just quirkly. Here are two that stuck in my mind. the street sign above is by "qnr". The link below takes you to a particulary bad Reference desk sign.

Library Oxymoronic Sign on Flickr - Photo Sharing!

All and all I think I will be using Flickr in the future in many more ways than I have been currently!

podcasting

I've been downloading radio podcasts to my iTunes account about 3-4 times per week. I love podcasting! It's so convenient, I can listen to a radio show that I like when I want to listen to it - during my commute to and from work.
I've just gone to netvibes - and once I play with it a bit - it could very well end up being my homepage. I'll probably run it for a month to compare it to my iGoogle homepage so that I can see which I prefer. I also love that netvibes doesn't have to be loaded onto a computer to use.

Maybe I'll get brave and try to create a short podcast to upload....we'll see.